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Author Topic:   Treason
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 5 of 46 (701401)
06-18-2013 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by xongsmith
06-18-2013 12:52 AM


In a true & democratic society working to promote the advance of civilization there can be NO SUCH THING as TREASON. It is impossible to be treasonous - by it's own definition.
That's just blatantly false. It's trivially easy to demonstrate a hypothetical treasonous action even for "a true & democratic society working to promote the advance of civilization."
For instance, revealing troop movements to an enemy in a time of war.
But I would agree that the word "treason" is thrown around with excess these days. And I would agree that those who reveal secret wrongdoing are in fact patriots of the highest order, and we need brave people of that ilk to keep our societies honest. Neither Bradley Manning nor Snowden appear to be even remotely guilty of "treason" despite what several authorities say.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by xongsmith, posted 06-18-2013 12:52 AM xongsmith has seen this message but not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 12 of 46 (701421)
06-18-2013 7:34 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Taq
06-18-2013 7:03 PM


The problem with the Snowden case is that the NSA went through proper channels.
There are other issues. For instance, the "oversight" appears to be a joke. A particularly bad joke, in that the FISA court has never once denied a request. It's almost as if the FISA court, instead of being comprised of judges, were instead a secretary with a rubber stamp.
For another, the legal opinions on the application of the laws that made the programs "legal" are themselves secret. Passing a law and then assuming that the law would function as intended are two different things - many laws result in unforseen consequences, including overreaching by an agency taking the law farther than Congress had intended. Normally, it would be easy for Congress to revisit the issue. But when the legal opinions defining the Executive branch's interpretation of the law are themselves secret...well, it's rather difficult for Congress to know that there is a problem.
Then we have the secrecy of the entire process. Normally when someone is handed an order from the government that they believe is unconstitutional, or is being affected by a law that is contradicted by another superseding law, that person or agency can sue in court to resolve the matter. For instance, if a cop comes to my house and demands that I hand over my computers and passwords, I can fight him in court. But under the current laws, in many cases I'm not permitted to even take the matter to court. I'm not allowed to know that the NSA has collected my data, and therefore I'm not allowed to know that I have standing to sue.
How long are our records kept? Since they're intercepting all communications, all phone conversations, all emails, all website hits (sure, it's "just metadata" for Prism, but they have a 5-zetabyte data warehouse collecting the actual bits on the fiber cables - they can and do look at the actual content, it just requires 51% (Ha! Flip a coin!) confidence that the data is "foreign," or a rubber-stamp FISA warrant), anything you have said in any phone conversation or online exchange is traceable back to you. Sure, we expect some of that with forums and Facebook and the like - but how long does the government get to keep your entire Google search history? Every email you've sent or received? Every website you've ever visited, even if you never posted a thing?
What's so upsetting is not that some legislation was passed, or that spying was done (or at least not only that).
Obama keeps going back to the point that "checks and balances were in place." The point is that those checks and balances utterly failed. The pointis, just as John Oliver said on the Daily Show, "Nobody's saying that you broke any laws, Mr. President. We're just saying it's a little weird that you didn't have to.[/i]
The result, spying on American citizens even if "actual content" can't be seen unless a FISA court rubber-stamps a warrant, and spying on foreign nations as if non-Americans don't have any rights anyway, these are distressing and outrageous. But what's even more scary is the failure of all three branches to prevent it from happening. Apparently all you have to do is say "terrorism" or "9/11" and anything can be done, and Congress, the courts, and the President will all pass it right along.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Taq, posted 06-18-2013 7:03 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Jon, posted 06-18-2013 9:48 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 26 by Taq, posted 06-25-2013 5:01 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(3)
Message 19 of 46 (701526)
06-20-2013 1:58 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by ringo
06-20-2013 1:29 PM


My policy has always been to keep my own secrets. I don't tell you a secret and then blame you for leaking it.
"Three can keep a secret if two are dead."
Sometimes I think people, and governments in particular, should consider the ramifications of the eventual revelation of a secret, and determine whether they should still take the secret action assuming that the secret will eventually be revealed.
Some secrets would still be kept. It was important, in the late 40s, to keep the secret of nuclear weapons. Everyone knew that the secret wouldn't remain so, whether through espionage (as actually happened) or scientific research, since the latter had revealed the secret to the US in the first place. But delaying the revelation of that secret for as long as possible had a real benefit.
But other secrets...other secrets benefit only the secret keepers. They serve to delay or circumvent criminal prosecution or public outcry. Their purpose is not to protect the public, but to protect those who commit what the rest of us would often consider to be crimes...and if not actual crimes, then actions that should be made criminal.
The revelation of the secret of NSA spying did absolutely nothing to limit the abilities of that program from continuing to gather information and, to borrow words from the director of the FBI, "connect the dots." They still have all of the phone conversations. They still have all of the emails. They're still monitoring them right now. They're still intercepting data at the physical layer as it's carried over fiber optic trunk lines.
The only threat posed by the revelation of the secret is that the public and the courts (other than the rubber-stamp FISA court) might declare those activities to be illegal or simply wrong.
The secret did not protect the capabilities of the NSA directly. Revealing that the spying is happening is not going to magically make Jim-Bob the Terrorist stop using his phone or computer to communicate with his cohorts...and if it does, then that's yet another victory anyway, because his alternatives for coordination are severely limited without those modern miracles of nigh-instant global communication.
The secret protected the NSA's capabilities only indirectly, because obviously now that the public is aware, the NSA is facing a massive public backlash against it.
Keeping nuclear weapons secret served the people of the US and indeed the world, as proliferation resulted in near annihilation on more than one occasion.
Keeping the NSA activities secret served only the NSA.
To paraphrase Elizabeth Warren (who was speaking on a matter of secret trade policy, but the sentiment applies well in this instance): "If performing these activities out in the open would cause the American people to lash back and immediately seek legislation to stop it, then perhaps these activities should not be the policy of the United States."

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by ringo, posted 06-20-2013 1:29 PM ringo has seen this message but not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(2)
Message 28 of 46 (701752)
06-25-2013 5:33 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Taq
06-25-2013 5:01 PM


Is Congress incapable of forming their own opinion?
TO that point, I can say only that there are significant discrepancies between the information being leaked, the testimony of the head of the NSA, and the words of various Congresscritters. Not to mention the fact that many members of Congress elected to simply leave for the weekend when an NSA briefing was scheduled after the scandal broke.
In short, if I were to attempt a description of the Legislative branch of the United States government in but a single word, I would have to go with "incompetent." The word lacks sufficient nuance to precisely describe all that is wrong with our representatives, but in my estimation it is the most significant factor.
As you have already shown, this is being done in the light of day.
To a degree. Not entirely. The laws were enacted int he light of day. Their interpretation, in the form of DOJ opinions and court rulings (you know, those other two branches of government) were not performed in full view of the public. You still, today, cannot as a private citizen acquire a copy of those legal opinions or the rulings regarding them.
We know that the FISA courts have not turned down a single application. We know that the NSA went through all of the proper checks that it is required to go through by law. What the NSA did was entirely legal. Hell, I don't even think anyone is bringing a case before the courts to challenge these laws.
Indeed - though the latter is in large part because the entire scheme ensured that nobody would ever actually be able to provide evidence that they had standing upon which to sue.
Again - the issue here is not the violation of the law. Rather, it is the careful and partially (though not wholly) secret methodical circumvention of Constitutional rights (at least as the public has tended to interpret those rights such as the Right to Privacy and Free Speech) through the passing of new laws that are, by design, virtually impossible to challenge in court.
Then elect representatives that will change the law. From all appearances, the checks and balances are working just as they were intended to work when they were passed. What we have is a case of buyer's regret.
Certainly I have "buyers remorse" with regard to Obama - the extent of abuses that could be stopped with a single stroke of the Presidential pen, abuses Obama ran for office on the pretense of eliminating, has grown only worse.
Exactly which representatives are available for me to vote for, Taq? I know of very few candidates who would actually work toward the end of terminating these projects and revising policy. None of them ran for election in my disctrict.
The one who did was Obama, and he turned out to be the opposite of what he promised regarding things like transparency.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Taq, posted 06-25-2013 5:01 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Taq, posted 06-25-2013 5:53 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 31 of 46 (701756)
06-25-2013 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Taq
06-25-2013 5:53 PM


Who elected them?
An electorate devoid of better choices and faced with hopelessly gerrymandered districts such that the two "real" parties are virtually invulnerable to any upstart alternative party.
The American political machine has created an extremely effective system of self-preservation. You know this. Virtually everyone knows this, unless he or she is an utter fool. Representatives who are not Republicans or Democrats are exceptionally rare and weild effectively zero power. While the Republicans and the Democrats hold different views on such topics as "abortion" and other emotional hot-buttons to maintain the facade of "choice," on a great many important issues they completely agree. For instance, on the NSA - rare is the Democrat or the Republican politician who is actually willing to undo legislation like the USA PATRIOT Act. Most politicians from both parties refer to "whistleblowers" immediately as "traitors."
Odd, when they cannot seem to agree on any other single issue, they all seem to agree on that which retains power that each party might enjoy using.
If they are violation of constitutional rights then bring it in front of the courts.
A few class action suits have already sprung up. Previous to the actions of Snowden, however, it was impossible to do so. Perhaps you don;t understand the concept of "standing." Allow me to explain.
In order to sue the NSA and challenge their warrantless collection of information or indeed any other single policy, I must first prove that I have "standing" to challenge those policies. To prove I have "Standing," I must show that I have been personally affected - for instance, I must show that I, personally, have been surveiled by the NSA.
Even today, after the leaks, it would be impossible for me to determine if I personally have been a victim of the NSA (even if it's extremely likely that they have data collected from me; the relevant portion to the court would be the mere 49% chance that any given communication viewed by the NSA without warrant was domestic and not foreign - hardly sufficient to prove that I am a victim).
It would appear that you are oversimplifying the issues at hand in order to blame the electorate for the abuses of their elected leaders. But you and I and anyone else who is not a complete fool knows that much-vaunted democracy bears many flaws, of which these latest scandals are merely a single example. The electorate may bear a degree of blame, certainly...but faced with politicians like Obama who campaign promising to undo exactly what he expanded, and a generations-in-the-making political machine engineered toward self-preservation and the status quo with gradually ever-increasing power grabs...I think it's more than fair to say that a large portion of the problem is the system itself.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Taq, posted 06-25-2013 5:53 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by jar, posted 06-25-2013 6:32 PM Rahvin has replied
 Message 35 by Taq, posted 06-26-2013 11:18 AM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 33 of 46 (701760)
06-25-2013 6:48 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by jar
06-25-2013 6:32 PM


Re: But we did it.
But it is the US electorate that allowed all those things, elected those representatives, promoted all those things.
The fact is that the US electorate is ********, incapable of reason, uninterested and pretty ******.
If there are problems they are problems we created.
Instead of pretending we're on twitter and limiting you4rself to saying "I disagree," perhaps you could perhaps address what I actually said rather than simply asserting that the blame still rests on the electorate.
You haven't provided any form of argument or discussion. I said "the electorate cannot be wholly held to blame and avenues for the electorate to remedy the situation are few," and you simply said "yeah but the electorate did it. Also they're dumb."
Perhaps, if you feel I am wrong, you should explain why. It would make it much easier to hold a debate if you were to do so.
Failing that, and of far more interest to me, if you have something actually useful to say, like perhaps an actually practical method by which these problems can be undone, please share.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by jar, posted 06-25-2013 6:32 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by jar, posted 06-25-2013 7:12 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 36 of 46 (701804)
06-26-2013 12:30 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Taq
06-26-2013 11:18 AM


I think the Tea Party movement has shown this to be false. Movements can still happen, even within parties.
That's what you took away from the tea party?
The whole thing was coopted by mainstream Republicans. Nothing really changed. This is like saying that the Occupy movement influenced Democrats. It didn't; not really. There was some verbal pandering in both cases, but nothing changed.
This is only because people refuse to vote for a third party. You get the government you elect.
It's far more complicated than that. Districts have been gerrymandered with the specific intent of maintaining current party distributions among voters. Many of the districts, if you look at them on a map, make literally no sense outside of that context. The American voting system is not and never has been a simple "majority rules" form of democracy. Third parties might have more of a chance, if it were. But the disctricting system and the lines that have been drawn ensure that challengers to the status quo have a virtually nil chance of success...which is why we have a few third party representatives in the legislature, but not many.
Why, do you think, the general American approval rating for Congress is around 10%, yet the same corrupt idiots get voted back in, year after year?
Why can't you challenge the law on a lack of due process?
Because since all of the evidence is secret, I cannot show that I have actually suffered the deprivation of due process.
The class action suit I know of consists of Verizon customers challenging the collection of their metadata - which is only now possible because the Verizon collection was leaked. Before the leak, while I would know that the NSA could potentially target me, I would need evidence that they had actually targeted me in order to have standing for a lawsuit.
You seem to think that, just because an action is unconstitutional, anyone can bring it to the courts. That's not the case. Never has been.
Our democracy will always have flaws. What bothers me is that people are only now opening their eyes. We know that this has been going on since the Patriot Act gave the NSA the ability to do exactly what they have been doing. I think it is a bit self serving to feign surprise.
Knowledge of a general and uncertain possibility is very different from specific knowledge of an ongoing certainty. This is simple human nature - some of us have been upset about the USA PATRIOT act and other laws for a while - but sometimes it takes a revelation of specifics with evidence from someone like Snowden to actually catapult the issue into the national consciousness and spark mass outrage.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Taq, posted 06-26-2013 11:18 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Taq, posted 06-26-2013 12:40 PM Rahvin has replied
 Message 41 by nwr, posted 06-26-2013 6:04 PM Rahvin has replied
 Message 43 by Jon, posted 06-26-2013 11:51 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 38 of 46 (701836)
06-26-2013 4:50 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Taq
06-26-2013 12:40 PM


Yep. Long time incumbent Republicans lost their primary races. I would say that is pretty dramatic.
And what actually happened? Did the actual platform of the Republican Party change in any significant way? Did they split?
You're focusing on the trees. Look at the forest - nothing significantly changed. The Tea Party movement was primarily an anti-Obama movement focusing on foolhardy tax policies that were already present within the Republican party, rejection of so-called "Obamacare," and outright racism. The Republicans easily co-opted the movement - a few individual Republicans changed seats, but the system remains rigged to the status quo. Elections require money and voters, which have been strongly influenced by gerrymandering and massive political contributions for the ultra-rich, like the Koch brothers.
The only way this works is if the voters are happy with the current parties, or at least apathetic.
It requires voter awareness, for one thing. One of the largest flaws of democracy is that it requires an informed electorate - if you asked 9/10ths of Americans on the street whether their district has been gerrymandered, they'd answer with variations of "what's gerrymandering?"
And you're still relying on a simplified version of the voting process. You cannot vote for a candidate based on their position on redistricting alone - you vote on a large number of positions, and redistricting is very rarely one of the hot-button voting issues. That's not even wrong, it's an inevitable consequence of voting for people rather than specific positions. It's a package deal. Find me a "perfect" candidate and I assure you I'll vote for him/her. But I can honestly say that not once can I recall a state legislator that I could choose to vote for who even mentioned redistricting in his/her campaign.
You are saying that the process itself lacks due process, so all you need is the system itself.
That's a nice thaught, but it has never passed the muster of a judge. I can remember not terribly long ago a lawsuit that attempted to challenge the FBI's usage of National Security Letters (authorized under the USA PATRIOT Act, these require information to be disclosed and forbids the recipient from disclosing receipt or content of the letter). The system was known, but the complainant could not prove to a judge that an NSL had actually been used against him - and so he could not prove he had standing, and the case was thrown out.
An unconstitutional system is not sufficient to sue. You have to prove that you, specifically, have been targeted by that system. Not that you may have been, or that your rights would be violated if you were a target. You have to prove that you've actually been targeted. That's impossible if the evidence you would need is classified.
But no one has been upset enough to vote for a candidate that pledges to repeal the Patriot Act, even though we knew that these types of searches and seizures would be going on.
To a large degree we did when we voted for Obama, who promised not specifically to overturn the USA PATRIOT Act, but did promise to counter the Bush abuses of the public trust including renditions, warrant-less wiretapping, and other related items. Of course, he lied, but you cannot blame the electorate when they vote for a man based on his platform and then he breaks every promise.
And the leak has only now propelled this problem into the public consciousness. There hasn't been an election in the last few weeks - the electorate has not had a chance, while somewhat rallied, to make such decisions.
Again I say that knowledge of possibilities and generalities is different from knowledge of specific and ongoing actualities with supporting evidence. You seem to be insisting that the electorate be perfectly aware and perfectly rational - and we know that's just a pipe dream. Human nature tends toward the discounting of vague possibilities that will probably happen to someone else, but tends toward a different reaction when everyone is told that we are all specifically being watched.
Your overly simplified suggestion that "well, the people got what they wanted, and anyway they should have done something about it a long time ago" is neither true nor helpful. If it were true, the approval rating of Congress would be something above 10% and the voting experience in the US would not be nearly universally considered the selection of the lesser among evils.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Taq, posted 06-26-2013 12:40 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Taq, posted 06-26-2013 5:35 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 40 of 46 (701842)
06-26-2013 5:46 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by Taq
06-26-2013 5:35 PM


The Republican party shifted noticeably to the hard right. I am looking at the forest.
I didn't see the Republicans shift farther to the right. ALl I saw was increased polarization. The legislation proposed by the Republicans didn't get any farther right that I ever saw - they just took a more hardline stance against compromise. As that had already been a growing trend before the tea party came along, I don't see that as an effect of the tea party, even though the trend continued after their rise.
Why don't YOU run for office?
I haven't even the faintest idea where to start, and I don;t have the luxury of being able to give up my day job to seek office. And those are just the obvious immediate first-order gatekeepers to doing such a thing.
So you are saying that no one has subpoena rights for these records, even FOIA rights?
They're State Secrets. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. People have tried. They have failed. When the courts demand records, the executive just says "State Secrets!" and it's all kept secret. FOIA rights are only useful if you know the specific name of the specific document you want to request. How precisely would you learn the name of a document relating to a classified program that may or may not have actually targeted you? Even then, the documents would be heavily redacted.
You seem to think that the US government is far more transparent than it actually is. We have been given the appearance of transparency with things like the Freedom of Information Act. And yet I cannot simply make an FOIA request for documents relating to the extraordinary rendition of terror suspects. Neither can I make an FOIA request to obtain details on what information has been collected from my internet or telephone usage by the NSA.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by Taq, posted 06-26-2013 5:35 PM Taq has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 42 of 46 (701845)
06-26-2013 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by nwr
06-26-2013 6:04 PM


Oh, it did. It was probably an important factor in the outcome of the last election.
No doubt it did not have as much influence as you would have liked, but it did have influence. When that 47% speech of Romney's came out, people were saying "Oh, he really means the 99%." They got that idea from OWS.
It didn't produce any real political change. It didn't produce any detectable influence on new legislation. The Democratic Party has not changed its platform; neither have third parties seen additional members elected. I'm sure it helped Obama get re-elected...but is that really a change in the Democratic Party? The fact that it was a re-election would suggest strongly that it is not.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by nwr, posted 06-26-2013 6:04 PM nwr has seen this message but not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 45 of 46 (701858)
06-27-2013 1:01 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by xongsmith
06-27-2013 12:26 AM


Many arent happy with "their guy" either. But voting doesn't mean you get to vote for all of your views. You just get to vote for the best out of the available choices - and there is a selection process before voting ever begins to actually get on the ballot: a process that requires money and attention.
Many are faced with the choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. You might prefer the sandwich to the douche, but you're still not going to be particularly happy about it.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by xongsmith, posted 06-27-2013 12:26 AM xongsmith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by xongsmith, posted 06-27-2013 1:21 AM Rahvin has not replied

  
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